


lacrimosa

by ADreamingSongbird



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, i took a scene i didnt like and i added a big squirt of communication juice, i will Take The Hammer and Fix the let's-end-this!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:50:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15789294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: “It makes sense,” he finally says, barking out a laugh that tastes like midwinter (bitter, sharp, cold). “You make me want things I can’t have.”("Let's end this," Yuuri says. A gunshot to Viktor's heart would have been less devastating.)





	lacrimosa

**Author's Note:**

> me: i wanna do a writing warmup! time to do drabbles!  
> me, 2000 words later: ah,

Retiring.

Yuuri is _retiring._

Bitterness and resentment and frustration melt into a sour, bitter taste in the back of Viktor’s mouth, swirling in his stomach until they bubble and boil over and he wants to let his head fall back and _howl,_ wants to take his fucking skates and throw them from the balcony to land somewhere in the Barcelona streets, broken and useless—

( _like him like him like him_ )

—so that Yuuri _can’t_ send him away, can’t be rid of him, can’t kick him to the curb like it’s all meant nothing. Has it all meant nothing? He thought (and his throat closes and the tears keep falling, steadily dripping from his chin into the wet spot on his bathrobe) it meant _everything._

“So that’s it,” he finally whispers, glaring down at the carpet, as if it’s the reason nobody ever wants to keep him but the ice. He can’t look at Yuuri, not now. He’ll shatter. “You don’t want me anymore.”

Yuuri exhales what’s almost but not quite a scoff. “Of _course_ I want you,” he says, as if it’s ridiculous that Viktor is thinking otherwise. “But you love skating, and I can’t… I can’t let my own wants get in the way of that. I—I can’t keep you from what you love.”

_You’re what I love,_ Viktor wants to scream. But maybe his love was never… Yuuri doesn’t want him. He says he does, but he _doesn’t._ If he did, he wouldn’t be abandoning him.

He shakes his head mutely for a second, not bothering to dash at his eyes. He can’t stop crying, and he hates it, and he wants to lash out at himself, the world, the ice. (Not at Yuuri; never at Yuuri. Stupid, selfless Yuuri.)

“It makes sense,” he finally says, barking out a laugh that tastes like midwinter (bitter, sharp, cold). “You make me want things I can’t have.”

And there it is—the warmth, the concern, the gentle _care_ in Yuuri’s voice that he fell so hard for. Making him think Yuuri would care for him, would care for _Vitya,_ not just Viktor Nikiforov, the face of figure skating. “Like what?”

Viktor laughs humorlessly again, tipping his head back and finally, finally smearing away the tears. “Oh, god. Someone who doesn’t make my life choices for me. Someone who trusts me to be myself and _lets_ me. First I thought, Yakov would support me! He’d care about my happiness. Except once I stopped winning medals for him, he stopped caring. But I thought, I can let go of Yakov, because I found someone who cared about my happiness.”

He levels a hard look at Yuuri, then, somewhere between frigid and broken.

“Or I should say, I _thought_ I found someone.”

Yuuri’s breath leaves him with a _whoosh_. “Vitya, the reason I want to retire is so that you _can_ be happy,” he starts, but Viktor shakes his head, clenching his hands into fists so tight his knuckles go white and his fingernails dig painfully into his palms.

“It’s _not,_ ” he grinds out. “It’s what you _think_ would make me happy, but you didn’t ask, you just decided for me, and you’re telling me you know what’s best for me, like I’m some kind of idiotic _child—_ ”

His voice breaks on a sob, and abruptly, Yuuri hugs him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, as Viktor goes rigid in his arms, frozen solid where normally he melts and relaxes and smiles. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I never told you I was planning to retire since the beginning of the season. I’m sorry.”

It’s like a punch to the gut. He even whines, like a kicked dog, as the last shattered remnants of his heart crumble, ground into the dirt by an unforgiving heel, and he gasps for breath, horrified and destroyed. “You—the entire time—this whole _year?”_

Yuuri tightens his arms, even though Viktor has yet to return his embrace, heartbroken and furious and hurting. “I think,” he says, very very quietly, “I never wanted to, and that’s why I never told you.”

“But you’re still doing it?” Viktor whispers. Why did he wipe his face? The tears aren’t stopping.

Yuuri wavers.

“No,” he finally says, burying his face in Viktor’s hair. “We—we can talk about it more, but—you’re right. I—it’s not fair to you. I don’t… I don’t _want_ to do it, Vitya, I just—I’m not worth your time and—”

“You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t worth my life,” Viktor cries, frustrated. “You can’t put me in a cage and tell me it’s what I should be happy with! That’s what they spent my entire life doing, and I didn’t even know what living was! I’m _not_ going back to that, I can’t, I’ll _die!”_

Yuuri’s voice hitches. “Vitya,” he whimpers, and then his arms tighten again and he starts to cry too. Viktor finally, finally hugs him back, buries his face in his stomach, and trembles. “I’m _sorry._ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I c-can’t do it, I don’t—I don’t want this either, I, I just—”

“Then _don’t,”_ Viktor begs. “Don’t do it. Please, please, please, don’t do this, Yuuri, _please_.”

Yuuri wavers for a long, long moment. Then, abruptly, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, he all but collapses into Viktor’s lap, clutching at him and crying into his hair. “I love you,” he whispers, fingers curling and uncurling against Viktor’s scalp as if he can’t figure out if he wants to stroke his hair or cradle the back of his head. “I love you, you know that, right?”

“I _thought_ I knew,” Viktor whispers, perhaps a little cruelly, but he’s hurting and he has a tendency to lash out when he’s hurting, and—and Yuuri tenses and starts to cry harder, and immediately guilt does a stunning triple axel to land in the mixing pot of messy emotions in Viktor’s stomach, and he weakly tightens his arms. “I know. I know.”

“I thought you’d be happier if you didn’t feel obligated to—to be stuck coaching me,” Yuuri sobs. “I just hold you back, that’s all I do!”

Viktor shakes his head, over and over. “From _what?”_

“You love the ice,” Yuuri repeats, forlorn and defeated. “You love skating. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

Viktor takes a deep, shaky breath. “Two things,” he whispers, fingers starting to trace small, soothing circles at the small of Yuuri’s back, and Yuuri sniffles and presses him closer. “I can skate without competing. I’ve _been_ skating, with you. And Yuuri. Yuuri, god—you are the one who taught me how to love it again. I don’t _want_ to be on the ice if you’re not with me!”

Yuuri lets out a soft, devastated wail, and then all the fight goes out of his body completely and he slumps sideways against Viktor, clinging to him as if for dear life. “I’m _sorry,_ ” he cries, over and over as Viktor rocks him gently. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Vitya, I’m sorry!”

“Please don’t do this,” Viktor whispers, aching to kiss away his tears but too terrified and exhausted to do it. “Please don’t throw me away.”

“I could never,” Yuuri whispers back, shaking his head. “I could never. I don’t want to do this. I, I want you to stay.”

“You mean it?” Viktor closes his eyes, afraid to hope and yet hoping anyway.

Yuuri takes a deep breath to steady himself, then presses a lingering kiss to Viktor’s hair. “I mean it.”

Viktor relaxes even as he starts to cry again, tears of stark relief spilling down his cheeks. He thought he’d cried himself out. “Thank you,” he murmurs, burying his face in Yuuri’s neck. “Thank you, thank you, oh, god…”

Alarmed, Yuuri frantically thumbs away his tears and looks at him with big, watery brown eyes. “Vitya, don’t cry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t cry!”

“How can I not?” Viktor laughs wetly, and Yuuri kisses his forehead guiltily. “I thought—I thought the first person who l-loved me in years was getting rid of me.”

Yuuri goes very, very quiet.

“I can’t be the first person who’s loved you in years,” he says, cupping Viktor’s cheeks and frowning. “Don’t say that.”

Viktor shrugs and smiles bitterly. “My mother died ten years ago and my extended family barely knows me. Yakov stopped calling me _Vitya_ once I left Russia and stopped bringing him medals. I never had a social life because I was too busy training. Who else do I have?”

“You have Chris,” Yuuri says, brow furrowing with doubt. “And your rinkmates.”

Viktor actually laughs, this time, sharp and pained. “Oh, sweetheart. Chris is still upset that he never got a chance to beat me. My rinkmates stopped being friends with me once it became clear that they never could.”

Yuuri’s frown deepens. Then, abruptly, he’s pulling Viktor into the gentlest, saltiest kiss in the history of kisses, caressing his cheeks and tenderly moving his mouth against his, and when he pulls back he hugs him, tight.

“I’m sorry,” he says, again, and then (even better), “I… won’t retire yet. If that’s… if that’s what makes you happiest, really and truly—”

“Makes _us_ happiest,” Viktor interrupts, very quietly, because he needs to hear Yuuri acknowledge that they’re still an _us._

“Makes us happiest,” Yuuri agrees. “Okay. Um. Okay. Okay. We’re okay. We’re okay, right?”

“We’re okay,” Viktor says, his voice very small. “You still want me, right?”

Yuuri hugs him tight, tight, tight. “God, yes.”

“Then we’re okay. I…” He takes a shaky breath, inhales the scent of tears and cotton and Yuuri, and lays his head back down against Yuuri’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Yuuri says immediately, and then pauses, freezes, and says very quietly, “Oh no.”

Alarm pounds through Viktor like he’s been injected with five liters of adrenaline. “What’s wrong?”

Yuuri squirms in his lap, and somehow that makes him feel better. “I, um. Was crying?”

“I noticed,” Viktor says, looking up, and oh, that is a _very_ sheepish face.

“I got snot in your hair,” Yuuri blurts out.

Viktor stares at him, nonplussed, for a full five seconds. This is the most absurdly domestic, disgusting thing to happen tonight, by far, and it’s so surreal that the entire mixing pot that’s still at a low, sad simmer gets kicked off the stove entirely. He wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“I’m _sorry,_ ” Yuuri groans, burying his face in his hands for a moment. “And you just showered and everything… That’s so embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” Viktor echoes. “You got snot in my hair. That’s just gross.”

Yuuri makes a loud, long noise of complaint, with no intelligible words that Viktor can discern. It’s so intensely _normal_ that somehow, it relaxes him more than any of their words have. “I’ll wash it out for you,” he finally says, face all red. It was red and blotchy before, from crying, but now it’s a different red—pinker, less blotchy. Viktor could paint a sunrise in the hues of Yuuri’s blushes, but he wants more time—more time to study each and every one, to wake up and see those warm, golden rays against his soft skin.

“You better,” he sniffs, and Yuuri slides from his lap to take his hands and tug him to his feet. “How much is it? Is it a lot?”

“Not a lot,” Yuuri assures, though he could easily be lying, as he guides him to the bathroom. “Do you just wanna shower again?”

“You said you’d wash my hair,” he complains, and maybe it’s a little petulant and a little whiny, but he deserves this, and the fond, indulgent look on Yuuri’s face says he knows and he agrees.

“Yeah, and I can also wash your back.”

“I just showered.”

“Okay, then, you can wash mine.”

Viktor finally, finally smiles. “Okay,” he says, and leans against Yuuri’s back as the warm water starts to run.

**Author's Note:**

> im a slut for communication what can i say *jazz hands*


End file.
